The significant discursive shift that emerged globally following the 2021 Unity Intifada successfully centered Zionist settler colonialism as the root cause of the Palestinian struggle. This policy brief explores how Palestinians can rethink their liberation struggle by turning to their rich history of popular mobilization. It examines the successes of the Palestinian popular committees that formed in the West Bank and Gaza throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and offers recommendations for how Palestinian civil society today can work to rebuild communities that facilitate the development of a reimagined grassroots liberationist movement.

The First Intifada built on grassroots missions and practices aimed at disengaging from Israeli settler colonialism that had been part of Palestinian society for nearly two decades. Indeed, the national campaigns that emerged during the Intifada included the boycott of Israeli products and of the Israeli Civil Administration, refusal to pay Israeli taxes, and successful calls for the resignation of hundreds of Palestinian tax collectors and police officers—all tactics practiced throughout the 1970s and 1980s. 

In the early 1970s, Palestinian volunteer movements formed across the West Bank and Gaza to mitigate the suffering of communities most directly affected by Israel’s 1967 military occupation. Before long, these movements grew into regional networks of volunteers whose activities politicized a generation of youth by bringing different parts of Palestinian society together and developing awareness of the importance of anti-colonial struggle. 

The networks also led to the rise of popular committees which responded to Israel’s neglect and de-development in various sectors of Palestinian life. The most ubiquitous popular committees worked at the neighborhood level, and were usually composed of local youth. They mainly provided support to the most vulnerable and increased the resilience of communities in the face of Israeli attacks, including through coordinating mutual aid, carrying out nightly guard duty to alert of settler and military attacks, and organizing the storage and distribution of food for prolonged curfews.

Networks of cooperatives and home economy projects also promoted local produce and aimed to reduce the reliance on Israeli goods. Many neighborhoods also undertook backyard farming to increase food security. These committees contributed significantly to the mobilization witnessed among farmers during the First Intifada, ensuring an expanding network of anti-colonial, liberationist Palestinian farmers and agronomists.

Similarly, Palestinians formed health committees composed of volunteer healthcare professionals who provided medical services in rural areas. Many of these committees adopted a liberationist conceptualization of health, promoting holistic treatment that centered social, political, and economic determinants. The health committees were so fundamental to Palestinian civil society, political groups were compelled to form and promote them. Indeed, health committees were so successful at reaching Palestinians at the grassroots level, they permeated the Palestinian political spectrum, and between them were providing 60% of primary healthcare and all disability services in the West Bank and Gaza by 1993. 

But following the devastating First Intifada, the PLO’s adoption of the Oslo framework in 1993, and the subsequent formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994, a process of depoliticization replaced the liberationist framework of the committees and cemented a shift in discourse from liberation to state-building. Throughout the 1990s, several popular committees formalized into non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and many committee members, including leftist activists, joined the post-Oslo NGO world, while some popular committees registered as charities and adapted to the neoliberalization of Palestinian civil society.

In addition to the domination of a state-centered discourse, Israel’s ongoing destruction and fragmentation of Palestinian communities continues to hinder Palestinians’ ability to organize. The complicity of the PA in perpetuating this status quo also places significant obstacles on Palestinians’ ability to mobilize as they did in the 1970s and 1980s. And while examining the successes of the popular committees will not automatically lead to a clear vision for liberation today, they can inform initial goals to facilitate the growth of a reimagined liberation framework among Palestinians. 

While challenges and obstacles will remain, Palestinian civil society must: 

• Reorient municipal councils’ priorities to revive their political and social roles, including ensuring sustainable infrastructure in rapidly-growing towns and cities.
• Strengthen the role of cultural and educational institutions, public libraries, and other public forums to provide spaces through which communities can articulate political needs and demands. Universities should complement this by expanding their engagement with the public. 
• Redirect professional services towards addressing the holistic needs of the communities they serve rather than applying neoliberal frameworks in the public sector. 
• Promote existing popular movements that have already formed community-based structures, such as in Beita, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Umm al-Fahm, and the Naqab, and that are well-placed to expand their role from reactive organizing to articulating a vision for liberation from their communal bases. 

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Introduction

With the significant discursive shift that emerged globally following the 2021 Unity Intifada, Palestinians and their allies successfully centered Zionist settler colonialism as the root cause of their struggle, with liberation as the only solution. This has supplanted the peace and state-building narratives that have dominated global discourse on Palestine, especially since the 1993 Oslo Accords. The ongoing Unity Intifada continues to challenge the forced geographical, social, and political fragmentation of the Palestinian people, thereby aligning the struggles and hopes of Palestinian communities worldwide.

Advancing the goal of liberation requires the redevelopment of an anti-colonial framework. In addition to promoting a liberationist discourse, the framework necessitates subverting the colonial structures under which Palestinians live. This policy brief explores how Palestinians can rethink their liberation struggle by turning to their rich history of popular mobilization. Specifically, it examines the successes of the Palestinian popular committees that formed in the West Bank and Gaza throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and offers recommendations for how civil society today can work to rebuild communities that facilitate the development of a reimagined grassroots liberationist movement.

The Legacy of Palestinian Popular Committees

The impressive national mobilization by Palestinians in the First Intifada should be seen in the context of the popular mobilization that preceded it. The First Intifada built on grassroots missions and practices aimed at disengaging from Israeli settler colonialism. The national campaigns that emerged during the Intifada, often coordinated by the United Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU), included the boycott of Israeli products and of the Israeli Civil Administration, refusal to pay Israeli taxes, and successful calls for the resignation of hundreds of Palestinian tax collectors and police officers—all tactics practiced throughout the 1970s and 1980s. 

The national campaigns and the popular committees’ efforts to defy the Israeli occupation apparatus were mutually reinforcing, and Israel’s eventual banning of all popular committees in 1988 illustrates their success. Indeed, Israel’s defense minister at the time commented that the decision to ban popular committees was due to their “undermining the Israeli government apparatus and establishing an alternative apparatus in its place.” 

Palestinian Volunteerism in the Service of Liberation

Palestinian volunteer movements formed across the West Bank and Gaza at a time when the struggle for liberation was being replaced with a state-building project. While this project was confirmed in the years following the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) arguably adopted this model as early as 1974 when it approved the 10-point program, a proposal which introduced the concept of the two-state solution to Palestinian nationalist discourse. Although backed by Fatah, the largest Palestinian faction within the PLO, this program was condemned by other factions that formed the Rejectionist Front on the basis that Fatah was forsaking the remainder of historic Palestine. 

Palestinian civil society also condemned the program and, starting in the 1970s, organized voluntary movements to mitigate the suffering of communities that fell under Israeli occupation after 1967. Mainly composed of middle-class professionals, the volunteers assisted farmers and poorer communities most directly impacted by the military occupation, and adopted projects to fix destroyed infrastructure. Before long, they grew into regional networks of volunteers, some of which belonged to political parties, including Fatah and the Jordanian Communist Party.¹

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The First Intifada built on existing missions and practices aimed at disengaging from Israeli settler colonialism
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The activities of the volunteer networks politicized a generation of youth by bringing different parts of Palestinian society together and developing awareness of the importance of anti-colonial struggle. These networks grew in conjunction with cultural institutions that asserted Palestinian identity and history. For example, El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe was established in 1979 with the mission to assert Palestinian political and cultural identity. In 1972, In’ash al-Usra Society, a non-profit feminist and developmental organization founded in 1965, began a cultural program to preserve and revitalize Palestinian heritage.

These growing networks facilitated political successes and instilled an anti-colonial ethos to resisting Israeli military aggression. In 1976, Palestinians elected a large number of progressive mayors and municipal councils. This enabled the establishment of the National Guidance Committee in 1978, which was made up of mayors, union representatives, student activists, and other grassroots organizers. Groups such as this accelerated the organization of politically active alliances across the occupied territories, which encouraged and normalized grassroots mobilization in public institutions and on the Palestinian street as a means to challenge settler-colonial military occupation. 

For example, months-long protests in 1979 led to the evacuation of the Elon-Moreh Israeli settlement, which had been built on private land belonging to Palestinian residents of the town of Rujeib. The same year, protests and the mass resignation of mayors prevented Israel’s deportation of the mayor of Nablus. The municipal councils elected in 1976 likewise managed to reduce their financial reliance on Israeli funding sources, instead raising funds from neighboring Arab countries to expand municipal services. This was particularly successful in Nablus, where the city was able to increase its independence in the energy sector.

Israel’s initial attempts to stifle this movement included the criminalization of members’ activities and restricting the movement of many mayors and activists. Palestinian universities, many of which were hubs for political activity, were shut for several months at a time from 1979 and into the 1980s. In 1980, underground Israeli militias attempted to assassinate three West Bank mayors, seriously injuring two of them. The extent to which Israeli occupation authorities suppressed Palestinian grassroots activism throughout this period attests to its political clout and efficacy. 

In 1982, Israel outlawed the National Guidance Committee and removed the elected municipal councils and mayors from office. It replaced them with less confrontational figures, and in some areas handed over municipal functions to Village Leagues. These leagues were largely composed of Palestinians from rural communities throughout the West Bank who were willing to collaborate with Israel in exchange for services, arms, and financial support. Although the Village Leagues ultimately failed due to Palestinian popular resistance, they represented the first Israeli iteration of Palestinian self-administration.

The Rise of the Popular Committees

The movement of volunteers led to the rise of popular committees in the 1970s and 1980s. These committees shared the aim of addressing the gaps left by Israel’s neglect and de-development in various sectors and were deliberately rooted in the communities which they served. 

Popular committees were established throughout the West Bank and Gaza, fulfilling a variety of functions. The most ubiquitous popular committees worked at the neighborhood level, and were usually composed of local youth. They mainly provided support to the most vulnerable and increased the resilience of communities in the face of Israeli attacks, including through coordinating mutual aid, carrying out nightly guard duty to alert of settler and military attacks, and organizing the storage and distribution of food for prolonged curfews. During the First Intifada, when the Israeli military forced months-long school closures, popular committees also established their own schools, often in places of worship or even in people’s driveways.

Most popular committees relied on the mobilization of volunteers. They therefore generally ran low budgets, which were primarily raised through local contributions and nominal fees. Professionalized committees, such as the agricultural and health committees, were more likely to seek additional external funding from western donors, while Arab donors generally funded institutions based in cities, such as Islamic charities. The expanding network of funding signified a substantive and promising Palestinian grassroots movement. 

Economic and Agricultural Committees

A central goal of the popular committees was to promote the independence of the Palestinian economy. Networks of cooperatives and home economy projects promoted local produce and aimed to reduce the reliance on Israeli goods. Many neighborhoods also undertook backyard farming to increase food security. Such initiatives were particularly prevalent during the First Intifada, when the commitment to boycotting the Israeli economy was at its peak. 

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The PLO's adoption of the Oslo framework in 1993 … accelerated a process of depoliticization … cementing a shift in discourse from liberation to state-building
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Agricultural collectives formed on the national level by networks of agronomists and activists aiming to protect and develop the declining sector. Farmers frequently faced land confiscation and damage to infrastructure by Israeli occupation forces, threatening their livelihoods and increasing Palestinians’ reliance on the Israeli economy. In response, networks of volunteers assisted with farm work, organized to protect farmers, and funded infrastructure development.

Many of these voluntary efforts developed into popular committees in the 1980s. For example, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC)² was established in 1983, followed by the Union of Agricultural Work Committee and the Technical Center for Agricultural Services in 1986. These committees contributed significantly to the mobilization witnessed among farmers during the First Intifada, ensuring an expanding network of anti-colonial, liberationist Palestinian farmers and agronomists. 

Health Committees

Similarly, Palestinians formed health committees composed of volunteer healthcare professionals who provided medical services in rural areas. While their primary goal was to counter Israeli occupation policies that put Palestinians’ health at risk, they also challenged the paternalistic and elitist attitudes and practices of the Palestinian medical establishment, which were perceived as additional risk factors.

The Palestinian medical elite attempted to establish institutions that were autonomous from Israel, but failed to confront Israeli authorities and, instead, focused on expanding specialized medical services in city centers and retaining paternalistic attitudes in service delivery. Healthcare was therefore framed as an individualistic issue rather than a community one, contributing to the neglect of marginalized groups. Consequently, many younger professionals came to reject not only colonial rule, but also the Palestinian medical establishment.

Many health committees thus adopted a liberationist conceptualization of health, promoting holistic treatment that centered social, political, and economic determinants. These committees focused on health promotion and public health, providing primary care to underserved communities and flouting the traditional medical establishment by engaging recipients of healthcare in the planning and delivery of the services they needed.

The anti-colonial foundations of many of the popular committees are also highlighted by their links to other liberation movements and international solidarity campaigns. For example, the founders of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC)³ also co-founded the International People’s Health Council, which brought together health professionals involved in social justice movements in countries like South Africa, Nicaragua, and Bangladesh. 

Although health committees were independent organizations, each was founded by a group of professionals with ties to political parties. Indeed, the health committees were considered to be so fundamental to Palestinian civil society, political groups were compelled to form and promote them. The first and largest of these was the UPMRC, established in 1979 by professionals with ties to the Communist Party. This was followed by the Union of Health Care Committees in 1984, tied to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Union of Health Work Committees in 1985⁴, with connections to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

But not all health committees espoused anti-colonial agendas. In 1989, Fatah-affiliated professionals established the Health Services Council (HSC). The HSC adopted the same reformist approach of its affiliate and was thus perceived to lack a clear liberationist vision. As a result, while left-wing committees worked in open defiance of Israeli authorities, HSC presented itself as a charity and registered with the Israeli government as a nonprofit association. From its inception, HSC thus reverted to the traditional medical establishment’s focus on paternalistic, centralized services in urban centers, while the leftist committees reached out to underserved communities and aimed to empower them through education, preventive medicine, and health promotion programs. 

Health committees were so successful at reaching Palestinians at the grassroots level, they permeated the Palestinian political spectrum, and between them were providing 60% of primary healthcare and all disability services in the West Bank and Gaza by 1993. However, the different political affiliations of popular committees sometimes led to them competing and duplicating services.

From Liberation to State-Building

While Israel banned the popular committees in 1988, they continued to function until several factors contributed to their collapse in the 1990s, including the tremendous physical and economic losses endured throughout the First Intifada. Moreover, the PLO’s adoption of the Oslo framework in 1993, and the subsequent formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994, accelerated a process of depoliticization within Palestinian society, cementing a shift in discourse from liberation to state-building. The HSC, for example, integrated all its services and facilities into the newly-formed PA Ministry of Health and its director became the Deputy Health Minister.

After Oslo, many community-based and grassroots efforts, including some popular committees, formalized into non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This resulted in the creation of an expanding NGO sector that, along with the PA, competed for resources and “NGOized” the Palestinian liberation movement. Many members of the committees, including leftist activists, joined the post-Oslo NGO world, while some popular committees registered as charities and adapted to the neoliberalization of Palestinian civil society. The UNLU and popular committees’ lack of a clear political vision, beyond challenging the occupation, may have also increased their vulnerability to the neoliberalization project.

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It is crucial to start by remedying the decimation of Palestinian communities, from which a liberation framework can develop and draw strength
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Popular committees additionally suffered from the repercussions of various regional geopolitical developments the late 1980s and early 1990s. With its disengagement from the West Bank in 1988, Jordan announced the cessation of a $1.3 billion development program for the West Bank. Moreover, the exodus of Palestinians from Kuwait in the wake of the PLO’s support for Iraq during the Gulf crisis of 1990-91 cut the flow of remittances from hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers previously based there. Although these had not been direct sources of funding for popular committees, they cut off a flow of income and capital into the West Bank. In addition, western governments politically invested in the Oslo process began redirecting funding from the new Palestinian NGOs to the PA. These factors contributed to the collapse of the liberation framework of the popular committees, gradually transforming into the state-building framework of the PA. 

In addition to losing funding and political backing, popular committees lost personnel to the PA. The Ministry of Health staff increased from 2,000 in 1994 to 7,000 in 1999, and it is estimated that 70% of non-governmental primary health clinics shut down with the arrival of the PA. Moreover, the new NGOs became vulnerable to the conditions imposed by donors, where continued funding was tied to their depoliticization and acceptance of the Oslo Accords. 

Ultimately, the losses inflicted upon Palestinians during the First Intifada, in conjunction with the state-building project institutionalized with the signing of the Oslo Accords, resulted in the dissolution of the popular committees as anti-colonial, liberationist movements, and in the proliferation of state-centered NGOs.

Obstacles to a Resurgence of Popular Organizing     

The destruction of Palestinian communities by decades of settler-colonial occupation continues to hinder Palestinians’ ability to organize. Indeed, Israel has fragmented the Palestinian polity, with rapid urbanization exacerbating this problem. While only 35% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza lived in urban areas in 1946, the percentage rose to 75% in 2020. This growth was driven by Israel’s policies of dispossession, which have disproportionately impacted rural areas. Moreover, with Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing, brutal violence, labor and resource exploitation, and with its policies to ensure Palestinian economic dependence persist, the possibility for substantive mobilization seems fleeting. 

The complicity of the PA in perpetuating this status quo also places significant obstacles on Palestinians’ ability to mobilize as they did in the 1970s and 1980s. Beyond security collaboration with Israeli occupation forces, the PA is involved in the ongoing de-development of public services, including health and education. Poor urban planning in fragmented communities also means that Palestinians live in overcrowded urban spaces with limited provision of services. That is, the inability of Palestinians in these spaces to attain basic resources restricts their capacity to organize. Moreover, municipal councils, which have been effectively depoliticized, lack the expertise or the political will to address these challenges; their roles have been reduced to providing only the most basic services, such as utilities, waste disposal, and roads.

This is not to deny, however, that Palestinians have successfully organized in recent years in spite of these conditions. This includes localized protests in Jerusalem, Beita, Nabi Saleh, and other villages, the anti-Prawer protests in 2013, the movement against the conscription of the Druze community, the Great March of Return in 2018, the Tal’at movement – which articulated a feminist framework for liberation and organized protests across colonized Palestine and the region – and the ongoing Unity Intifada which began in May 2021. 

Protests against PA corruption and its collaboration with Israel are also increasingly commonplace, the most significant of which occurred in the summer of 2021 against the PA forces’ assassination of prominent PA critic, Nizar Banat. Even universities have faced oppression by PA forces stifling political dissent on campuses. For example, in early 2022, the PA, backed by the student arm of Fatah, attacked Birzeit University for its students’ political activism. However, these efforts have been unable to mobilize into a broader liberationist movement, most notably due to systemic oppression by PA and Israeli forces.

Recommendations

While examining the successes of the popular committees of the 1970s and 1980s will not automatically lead to a clear vision for liberation today, they can inform initial goals to facilitate the growth of a reimagined liberation framework among Palestinians. It is crucial to start by remedying the decimation of Palestinian communities, from which a liberation framework can develop and draw strength. 

While challenges and obstacles will remain, Palestinian civil society must: 

• Reorient municipal councils’ priorities to revive their political and social roles, including ensuring sustainable infrastructure in rapidly-growing towns and cities to fulfill people’s social, cultural, and economic needs.
• Strengthen the role of cultural and educational institutions, public libraries, and other public forums to provide spaces through which communities can articulate political needs and demands. Universities should complement this by expanding their engagement with the public. In different university departments, educators should include programs in their curricula to ensure that their work is tied to surrounding communities. Moreover, universities should institutionalize and require colonial and anti-colonial studies across their student bodies.
• Redirect professional services towards addressing the holistic needs of the communities they serve rather than applying neoliberal frameworks in the public sector. For example, health professionals should reject individualistic and paternalistic healthcare practices and speak out about the necessity for improving the social, economic, and political determinants of health in order to promote communal wellbeing.
• Promote existing popular movements that have already formed community-based structures, such as in Beita, Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Umm al-Fahm, and the Naqab, and that are well-placed to expand their role from reactive organizing to articulating a vision for liberation from their communal bases. Civil society groups, unions, and other professional organizations must join in these movements and act as vehicles through which advocacy and campaigning can take place. 

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This post was originally published on Al-Shabaka.

What is the Palestinian vision for development that would bring about liberation? How can this vision be realized freely of donor-imposed conditions and restrictions? Specifically, how can the health and education sectors—which have been grossly neglected by Palestinian authorities in recent years—be developed by Palestinians in a way that promotes a collective vision for the future? A diverse group of 19 Palestinian scholars, activists, teachers, engineers, lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, construction workers, and students in the West Bank, Gaza, behind the Green Line (Palestinian citizens of Israel), and in the diaspora were interviewed to answer these questions.

The Palestinian health system is in a state of crisis. While donor support has allowed the Ministry of Health (MoH) to boast of quantitative improvements in vaccination rates and life expectancy, there remain significant problems which impact the sector, not least of which is the ongoing fragmentation of the ministry between the West Bank and Gaza. The interviews revealed three themes that limit internal development in Palestinian health across the West Bank and Gaza: 1) dependence/outsourcing for many health services, 2) an overly paternalistic and medicalized healthcare establishment, and 3) lack of opportunities for a future in medicine.

While the realities of occupation limit Palestinian health in unique ways, there are initiatives that could begin to build a healthier populace and a more responsive health system, including: 

• Emphasizing preventive and holistic wellness—including mental and physical health, children’s health, women’s health, and the health of people with disabilities— to bring health and well-being back into community spaces. 
• Reforming medical education to reflect the realities of where these doctors will work. Trauma medicine, and even advanced training for first responders and emergency medical technician (EMTs), would reduce mortality for Palestinians injured as a result of Israeli state or settler violence. 
• Incentivizing Palestinian doctors and other medical personnel who train abroad to return to practice medicine by guaranteeing them a secure job and salary. 
• Engaging with the medical establishment, including the MoH in the West Bank and Gaza, to develop a new and independent model for Palestinian medicine, public health, and wellness. This would engage stakeholders outside of the calcified health system who can advocate for underserved populations, and, importantly, decrease Palestinian dependence on Israeli and foreign health systems.

The importance of education was also emphasized by all interviewees; however, some pointed to the cynical reality of this perspective, which, in recent years, has led to a highly educated Palestinian society with very few opportunities for employment or continued education. Four themes emerged as the primary barriers to the development of a “liberation education” in the West Bank and Gaza: 1) outdated approaches to pedagogy, 2) outsized influence by donors, 3) a view of education primarily as a path to employment, and 4) opposition to reform within the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas.

Many interviewees criticized the “laziness” of Palestinian authorities when it comes to educational reform. Several also critiqued the education system for being heavily skewed by donor interference, including in textbook content. While the deficits in the education system are exacerbated by Israeli movement restrictions, which limit the recruitment of faculty and other needed professionals, the ability of students to engage with diverse speakers or travel across their territory for events, and overall opportunities for critical engagement, there are areas where internal transformation is possible:

• Palestinian leadership must invest in curricular development that restores a sense of agency among students, modeled after approaches such as abolitionist education and the community education practiced during the First Intifada. The education system must be inclusive, it must incorporate lived experience, and it must raise the consciousness of the individual.
• Communities should supplement traditional education with cultural education, including plays, talks and debates, olive harvesting events, traditional dance troupes and bands, and so on.
• Concerted efforts should be made to create legitimate and credible content on social media to engage youth with their history and identity. 
• Palestinian leadership should invest in vocational and non-traditional schooling and push donors to meet existing educational gaps. 
• Palestinian leadership and civil society should incentivize and encourage Palestinians who go abroad for education or training to return and work in Palestine, even if temporarily. 

The idea that Palestine could not merely change but could serve as a center for a new kind of liberation was a hopeful note that came up in several interviews: “We should be the ones to solve these kinds of problems internally and ‘sell’ our solutions abroad.” The consensus, however, was that meaningful change is not going to come from the outside and that Palestinians must have a clear and collective vision for their future in order for this change to occur.

The post A Vision for Liberation: Palestinian-led Development in Health and Education appeared first on Al-Shabaka.

This post was originally published on Al-Shabaka.

What is the Palestinian vision for development that would bring about liberation and free Palestinians of donor-imposed conditions and restrictions? A diverse group of 19 Palestinian scholars, activists, teachers, engineers, lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers, construction workers, and students in the West Bank, Gaza, behind the Green Line (Palestinian citizens of Israel), and in the diaspora were interviewed to answer this question. 

While they differed in many ways, nearly all brought up the same concern: there is currently no vision for Palestinians, and without a vision, it is hard to imagine a future different than the current reality in which development and aid are conditional on Palestinian authorities’ adherence to the requirements of the international donor community. Indeed, since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the model of development in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza has prioritized donors’ political agendas over the rights and needs of the Palestinians. This lack of vision can lead to apathy and disconnection. As one interviewee lamented, “It turns into a loathing of country in a way—at a certain point, you ask, why do I need to be tied to this place so much if I can’t survive, let alone thrive?”¹

In these interviews, barriers to and possibilities for locally-led development were explored in the health and education sectors. Health is a fundamental human need and right, and a population that struggles to procure basic health services is unlikely to have the mental and physical capacity for the critical work needed for liberation. Education, also a human right, is similar: an educated population is best poised to think deeply and creatively about problems presented as intractable. The sectors are also interrelated: a healthy population is best able to be educated, and an educated population is more likely to be healthy. Lastly, these sectors are overlooked by Palestinian authorities, who grossly overspend on the security sector; investment in health and education has thus stagnated in recent years.

The results of these interviews and the subsequent analysis are presented in two forms in this policy brief: a narrative exploration of the themes, followed by practical steps that could be taken by Palestinians within the West Bank and Gaza without external actors, all punctuated with quotations from the interviews. The brief does not discount the role of occupation, siege, trauma, and lack of accountability in perpetuating the poor outcomes for Palestinians. Further, it does not overlook the multiple layers of internal Palestinian dysfunction, including corruption, nepotism, and economic dependence that prevent Palestinian leadership from prioritizing the Palestinian people’s needs. Instead, it aims to restore agency to the Palestinians in wrestling with these ongoing realities; they need to decide their future independently and collectively.

A Palestinian Approach to Health and Education

Health

A college student in Gaza said during an interview: “It is terrifying to realize at some point that I could die because of the corrupted health care system. A disease that any country could deal with, my country cannot.” This is the state of the Palestinian health system which came under the administration of the Israeli Ministry of Defense in 1967 until the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH) was established with the 1993 Oslo Accords. 

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The (Palestinian) Ministry of Health inherited a broken system that remains fragmented to this day
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The MoH inherited a broken system that remains fragmented to this day. With donor support, the MoH has been able to boast of quantitative improvements in areas like vaccination rates and life expectancy, despite being divided into two ministries in the West Bank and Gaza because of the political rift between Fatah and Hamas. Regarding social determinants of health, however, there remains a significant gap between what is needed and what is available. The interviews revealed three themes that limit internal development in Palestinian health across the West Bank and Gaza: 1) dependence/outsourcing for many health services, 2) an overly paternalistic and medicalized healthcare establishment, and 3) lack of opportunities for a future in medicine.

All of the medical or public health professionals interviewed first mentioned external dependence and outsourcing as one of the main barriers to Palestinian health, and as both a cause and a result of a lack of Palestinian development in the health sector. Many of the causes of outsourcing are a result of Israeli restrictions on the movement of Palestinian people and goods. One retired physician who worked in Nablus pointed to the lack of specialization in the West Bank and Gaza, despite some Palestinians being trained abroad: “You cannot attract people with expertise. Highly trained Palestinians who try to come back end up leaving. They get paid more and enjoy higher quality of life elsewhere. We tried to find a pediatric cardiac surgeon—nearly impossible.” While the reasons for this brain drain differ across the fragmented geography of colonized Palestine, the resulting gaps left in the healthcare system have the same negative effects.

There are many specializations missing entirely, and not due to lack of interest. “There are people who want to specialize or serve in administrative medical roles—but how and where will you train to be a neurosurgeon?” the retired physician asked. Another interviewee described an NGO initiative to hire physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they were almost entirely without specializations and some even without experience. Thus, they have been unable to serve those who require more than the basic standard of care. 

As a result, even lab tests are sent to Israel for processing. This outsourcing includes the medical permit system, which has entrenched a dependence on the Israeli medical system, run by the Israeli military but paid for by Palestinian authorities. This system has resulted in significant health inequities and poor outcomes, especially for Palestinians in Gaza. Ultimately, dependence begets dependence, and Palestinian authorities and the donor community continually fail to push for Palestinian health sovereignty because of the cushion of outsourcing.

The character of the Palestinian medical establishment was also widely criticized. In the creation of the current MoH during Oslo, indigenous medicine was disparaged and the health system that was created was built to reflect the western health systems that resembled those of its donors: efficiency over quality, capitalist over collectivist, and paternalistic over inclusive. As one physician described, “Prior to Oslo, the atmosphere was ‘we are under occupation, we are in the same boat, no discrimination.’ People helped each other. There was more compassion. Now, there is competition and exploitation, even in health. Hospitals are there to make money. In the old days, specialists would volunteer. That atmosphere is gone.” 

The system is also highly biomedical, and rarely considers psychosocial aspects of health outside of several local organizations that work to support mental health and functioning. A graduate student in health policy mentioned that the health system “does not recognize the legitimacy of public health and epidemiology. It is not holistic. Once a year, there is a lot of advocacy around breast cancer awareness. This is essentially public health in Palestine. It says nothing about wellness. Is this a well society? No.” 

The lack of medical professionals was also cited as a significant issue, especially in Gaza. “We do not have even the most basic elements of making sure we have a healthcare system that will outlive the current generation of doctors,” one interviewee warned. Doctors who work in the public sector run the risk of pay cuts or long periods with no pay, so those who are able find work in the private sector. One interviewee described a joint program between a high-ranking medical school in the US and Al-Quds University. Only one of the participants returned to Palestine; they were unable to find a residency and are currently working as a nurse. As the interviewee noted, “Everyone is looking for a position in the West.”

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Dependence begets dependence, and Palestinian authorities and the donor community continually fail to push for Palestinian health sovereignty because of the cushion of outsourcing
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In recent years, the field of global health has engaged in difficult conversations about decolonization. One interviewee suggested that Palestine, more than any other place, could serve as a model of that movement in global health, as it has for other decolonization and liberation movements in the past. While the realities of occupation limit Palestinian health in unique ways, there are initiatives that could begin to build a healthier populace and a more responsive health system, including: 

• Emphasizing preventive and holistic wellness—including mental and physical health, children’s health, women’s health, and the health of people with disabilities— to bring health and well-being back into community spaces. This would decrease dependence on advanced health services only available outside of the West Bank and Gaza, and would encourage hiring a more diverse and representative workforce.
• Reforming medical education to reflect the realities of where these doctors will work. Trauma medicine, and even advanced training for first responders and emergency medical technician (EMTs), could reduce mortality for Palestinians injured as a result of Israeli state or settler violence. Emphasis on training in mental health and social determinants of health should also be provided across health education, including prioritizing the retention of medical specialists. There should also be greater training for nurses, midwives, occupational and physical therapists, and community health workers to ensure local care is available at a high quality, even in times of restricted movement. Telehealth and texting services could also be adopted for medical triage purposes in times of restricted movement or for providing information and services about sensitive topics like domestic abuse and mental health struggles. 
• Incentivizing Palestinian doctors and other medical personnel who train abroad to return to practice medicine by guaranteeing them a secure job and salary. Further incentives should be provided if they are then able to themselves train medical students in Palestine. Recognizing the challenges presented by professional brain drain, state funding, and donor resources should be specifically earmarked for this purpose.
• Engaging with the medical establishment, including the MoH in the West Bank and Gaza, to develop a new and independent model for Palestinian medicine, public health, and wellness. This would engage stakeholders outside of the calcified health system who can advocate for underserved populations, and, importantly, decrease Palestinian dependence on Israeli and foreign health systems.

Education

The importance of education was emphasized by all interviewees, and indeed, education is traditionally highly valued in Palestinian society. However, some pointed to the cynical reality of this perspective, which, in recent years, has led to a highly educated Palestinian society with very few opportunities for employment or continued education. Four themes emerged as the primary barriers to the development of a “liberation education” in the West Bank and Gaza: 1) outdated approaches to pedagogy, 2) outsized influence by donors, 3) a view of education primarily as a path to employment, and 4) opposition to reform within the governing bodies of the West Bank and Gaza.

The Palestinian education system is built upon the remnants of the Egyptian and Jordanian systems during their occupations of Gaza and the West Bank, respectively, from 1948 to 1967. Even during the initial decades of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and prior to the Oslo Accords, these systems remained in place, but under the authority of the Israeli Civil Administration. Jordanian and Egyptian curricula were still used, but they were subject to heavy censorship, and schools experienced regular closures and attacks. The Palestinian education system, from primary school to higher education, lagged significantly as it was devalued by Israel, pushing many Palestinians to seek menial labor in Israel. 

A formal Palestinian Ministry of Education (MoE) was formed when the Palestinian Authority (PA) was created in 1994. Without sovereignty, it inherited a weak education system, yet it did make significant curricular changes and revitalized school facilities with the heavy financial support of donors. Under the purview of the MoE (which, like the MoH, is split between the Hamas-run government in Gaza and the Fatah-led PA in the West Bank), literacy and enrollments in school have increased, similar to the quantitative advances made in the health sector. Yet there remains a large chasm between the education system that exists and a system that can support meaningful improvements in Palestinian life.

Interviewees, most of whom went through the Palestinian education system themselves, criticized the “laziness” of Palestinian authorities when it comes to educational reform, especially in the early years of the Oslo period. Many disagreed with the memorization/regurgitation model of primary and secondary education, culminating in the tawjihi, a placement exam taken at the end of a student’s schooling, based on the Jordanian system. Not a single interviewee defended this model, pointing out that it perpetuates class divides and creates immense pressure on students and their families, resulting in social shame if a student is unsuccessful. While students in private schools may be afforded other opportunities or can afford specialized tutoring, a poor showing on the tawjihi can be especially detrimental for students attending public schools. 

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There remains a large chasm between the education system that exists and a system that can support meaningful improvements in Palestinian life
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The tawjihi does not reward creative or innovative thinking, but a student’s ability to perform on a very technical exam in a tight time period. Only students who score well on the tawjihi may then apply to top-ranked programs at universities, like medicine and engineering. This poses another problem, as one interviewee described: “The smartest students are not necessarily the ones who do best on the tawjihi, and suddenly, their whole future and standing in the community is determined by this one exam.” 

Aside from lack of vision, several interviewees speculated that Palestinian authorities are also too concerned with the response of the international community to make meaningful reforms to education. This brings us to the next barrier, which is an education system that is heavily skewed by donor interference. “Education can and should focus on liberation, struggle, and history—donors want to focus on jobs,” one interviewee argued. This includes intervention in the curriculum itself. “There are people in Palestine who can create the curriculum, but Palestinians are not free to decide what topics or themes should be taught,” another interviewee mentioned. 

Palestinian textbook content is often attacked by Zionist groups, so donors are wary about any perceived “political content” in textbooks and schools they support. One example recounted by an interviewee was when textbooks in Gaza that featured the Arabic names of primarily Palestinian cities in territories behind the Green Line had to be changed due to donor demand. Donor intervention in education has also accelerated this push to a focus on individual over collective values. As one former public-school student described it, “don’t expect the state to provide you with services. You need to sustain yourself economically.”

This brings us to higher education. The current and former college professors interviewed noted that university education is not as rigorous as it should be or used to be and is highly centered on lectures over more innovative teaching methods. As one professor said, “It is not focused on motivating young people—sending them home with different ideas, opportunities for field work, or opinion polls—there is no emphasis on getting them to critically engage with the material.” 

Another professor interviewed who worked in a Palestinian university before the First Intifada lamented the shift that occurred during his time in the academy: “In the 1980s, there was some approach to critical thinking. We wanted the university to not just be a place to regurgitate information. In the 1990s, the universities started to resemble the broader ‘Arab university’ where the political authority had a say in things.” He observed that many of the “best and brightest” students and professors began to leave for opportunities abroad, and that degrees from the US or Europe began to be more highly valued than those from Palestinian or even other Arab institutions. 

The other issue is the view of education, and especially higher education, as primarily a path to employment, despite significant evidence to the contrary. This has led to more individualistic and neoliberal values that were less present in the early years of occupation, and it has also stifled creativity. One interviewee questioned: “What is the purpose of education? We went from an education designed around liberation, freedom, and empowerment to an education that teaches students how to get jobs that don’t exist in Palestine.” 

With this in mind, many pointed to the reality that Palestine lacks workers in certain crafts or trades, but there are limited vocational educational opportunities to fill these employment gaps. Several interviewees also commented on the lack of creativity in extracurricular experiences and how that stifles meaningful development. “There are no green spaces, no places to express yourself, no area for inspiration, and no organization. It wears on people,” one interviewee lamented. 

The top universities in Palestine, like Birzeit, used to function as fertile grounds for political awakening and critical thinking. Now, as many interviewees described, unchallenged political appointments within institutions, overt interference from boards of trustees and other non-academic entities, and frustration among faculty and staff that nothing gets done “without knowing the right people,” have pushed universities to limit their contributions to the community. “The university should influence the society,” one academic insisted. “Instead, the city came to run the university,” whereby universities became limited by the politics of governing bodies. Moreover, when students do become politically active and engaged, or think creatively and challenge norms, they risk arrest, detention, or imprisonment by Palestinian or Israeli forces. 

This leads to the final barrier: opposition to educational reform by Palestinian authorities at any level of schooling. This was expressed by one of the interviewees: “The PA does not want students to think critically or understand basic knowledge about their history and identity, so many Palestinian young people are really disoriented.” As with the health system, Palestinian authorities pride themselves on the quantitative improvements made in literacy and enrollment, but they “don’t go beyond that when it comes to education.” Another interviewee pointed out the deliberate de-development of Palestinian education by the PA: “The education system is what it is because the PA is a colonial tool. It may make reforms, but it is never going to be revolutionary.” 

The impact of occupation has been highly detrimental throughout all levels of the Palestinian education system. Many of the deficits recognized above are exacerbated by Israeli movement restrictions, which limit the recruitment of faculty and other needed professionals, the ability of students to engage with diverse speakers or travel across their territory for events, and overall opportunities for critical engagement. Yet there are areas where internal transformation is possible:

• Palestinian leadership must invest in curricular development that restores a sense of agency among students, modeled after approaches such as abolitionist education and the community education practiced during the First Intifada. This means challenging donor perspectives on what should be taught, shifting from the traditional memorization model to include reflection and application on practical and relevant issues, and reforming or entirely eliminating the tawjihi. The education system must be inclusive, it must incorporate lived experience, and it must raise the consciousness of the individual.
• Communities should supplement traditional education cultural education, including plays, talks and debates, olive harvesting events, traditional dance troupes and bands, and so on, to rebuild collective thinking, strengthen Palestinian identity in younger generations, and offer outlets for creative expression. 
• Concerted efforts should be made to create legitimate and credible content on social media to engage youth with their history and identity. As one interviewee said, “Facebook is the main space for news, knowledge, and education.” 
• Palestinian leadership should invest in vocational and non-traditional schooling and push donors to meet existing educational gaps. This would allow for Palestinians to meet the professional needs of society while increasing employment that helps to retain social capital. The West Bank and Gaza need plumbers, electricians, mechanics, cosmetologists, and other specialists who do not require a college education. This would also create space for blue collar work that is not dependent on labor in Israel. 
• Palestinian leadership and civil society should incentivize and encourage Palestinians who go abroad for education or training to return and work in Palestine, even if temporarily. Material and non-material incentives should be offered to nationals to come back and work as a form of “public service,” as one interviewee described.

Palestine as a Model for Liberation

The idea that Palestine could not merely change but could serve as a center for a new kind of liberation was a hopeful note that arose in several interviews: “We should be the ones to solve these kinds of problems internally and ‘sell’ our solutions abroad.” But is it reasonable to put the burden of development on a colonized, occupied people? Many of the interviewees wrestled with this question. The consensus, however, was that meaningful change is not going to come from the outside and that Palestinians must have a clear and collective vision for their future in order for the change to occur. As one interviewee poignantly said, “When people know where they are heading, they will amaze you with their sacrifice. When they do not know where they are heading, they will not lift a finger.”

In terms of future visioning, one interviewee asked: “Is the goal to create development and an economy around survival or to create an economy and development process aimed at liberation? If it is liberation, you have to know that you are not going to be as economically comfortable.” In the end, “something will happen,” as one interviewee put it. “This wheel will break, and we have to be ready. We need to create something completely new— a new national movement. We are living in a new age with new technology and a new kind of economy. Palestinians are everywhere, and we need to think creatively.” 

The post A Vision for Liberation: Palestinian-led Development in Health and Education appeared first on Al-Shabaka.

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Many communities across the world, especially people of color, queer communities, and the working classes, have for decades been challenging the notion that police and state justice institutions are forces of good. Their lived experiences reveal, to the contrary, systematic violence from these state institutions. As a result, they argue that these institutions do not and cannot provide the level of justice that is required for the survivors and victims of harm and the wider community to heal.  

The Black Lives Matter movement has brought challenging state policing and state justice systems to the forefront of mainstream media. In particular, police and prison abolitionism, which is the movement to end the police and carceral systems and adopt community-led alternatives, has gained traction. While not a monolithic movement, abolitionism holds several tenets, including the recognition that policing and prison systems entrench colonial, racial, class, and gendered oppression in ways often unmatched by other systems. Furthermore, abolitionism recognizes that incarceration as a response to harm and grievances does little to address the root causes at hand. 

These fundamental tenets have demonstrated that community accountability and transformative justice are better alternatives for dealing with harm and violence. Many activists within the abolitionism movement thus advocate for a process of defunding the police in favor of resources being placed into community, health, and education-based initiatives.

In colonized Palestine, the Israeli carceral regime has devasted Palestinian society and it is an issue which undeniably unites Palestinians. However, this unity has not yet led to a wider challenge to policing and incarceration. Indeed, many Palestinians make a clear separation between “political prisoners”—those accused of “security offences” by the Israeli regime—and “criminal prisoners.” One of the outcomes of this differentiation between prisoners as political and non-political is the implication that the root causes of “crimes” are not political. Yet, criminal designations are deeply politically motivated, and as Al-Shabaka policy analyst Randa Wahbe argues, we need to move to an understanding that “all prisoners are political.” In doing so, we create space to imagine a radically different future, one in which all carceral systems have no place in society.

This policy brief seeks to not only contribute to the global call for a world without prisons, but to also open avenues for thinking beyond policing and incarceration. It does so by exploring alternative forms of accountability and justice in colonized Palestine. In recognition that this work must take place outside of policing and justice institutions in Palestine, it offers recommendations to Palestinian grassroots actors and civil society for practicing community accountability and transformative justice. It also offers recommendations to the international donor community for minimizing harm.

The Colonial Makeup of Policing in Palestine 

Policing in Palestine has always been a colonial endeavor. This is demonstrated by the fact that many of the prisons and police stations used to police and incarcerate Palestinians during the British mandate are now used by the Israeli regime for the very same purpose. Indeed, prison and incarceration have long been common features of Palestinian life across colonized Palestine. Since 1967 alone, approximately 800,000 individuals have been detained by the Israeli regime, and currently, 4,600 Palestinian political prisoners are behind bars in Israeli jails. Many have served long sentences and others are on a repeat cycle of prison sentences. 

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Since 1967 alone, approximately 800,000 individuals have been detained by the Israeli regime, and currently, 4,600 Palestinian political prisoners are behind bars in Israeli jails
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While these prisoners are referred to by the Israeli regime as “security detainees” because they are deemed a threat to Israeli security, Palestinians have been continually fighting for international recognition of their status as “political prisoners.” Through military court boycotts, hunger strikes, writings, and oral testimonies, Palestinian prisoners have asserted the importance of this political classification as it highlights incarceration as the ultimate tactic of control by the colonial state. This status also distinguishes between “political” and “criminal” prisoners, the latter of whom are incarcerated by both the Israeli regime and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, civil police matters in the West Bank and Gaza have been transferred from the Israeli army to the newly created PA police—except for certain violations in Areas C, which are handled by the Israeli army. Indeed, paramount to Palestinian state-building was the creation of a PA security force and a criminal justice system, the latter of which would be independently capable of solving conflicts and prosecuting crimes. Within the 1948 territories and in East Jerusalem, Palestinians have Israeli citizenship or Israeli permanent residency status, and thus fall under Israeli civil administration.

Yet the creation of Palestinian policing and security institutions was not a step towards liberation; rather, it was an extension and outsourcing of the colonial carceral regime. The PA security forces operate under the framework of “securitized peace,” meaning that they work in full cooperation with the Israeli regime. Their existence relies on this cooperation as their funding comes from third-party states who hold them accountable to it. Today, the main funders of the Palestinian security forces and the criminal justice system include the UK, the US, Canada, and the EU. The latter created a special body in 2006, EUPOL COPPS, to focus on this sector. Its tasks include developing and reforming the Palestinian civil police, strengthening the criminal justice system, improving prosecution-police cooperation, and facilitating external donor assistance. 

One of the focuses of the Palestinian police is cybercrimes, including identity theft, blackmail, and sextortion, which have increased over the last decade in the West Bank and Gaza. In an apparent response to this, the PA passed a Cyber Crime Law by presidential decree in June 2017. The police and their external funders focused on the fact that the previous legislation was outdated and not equipped to deal with the rise of social media. It was also framed by EUPOL COPPS as a way to tackle gendered violence, citing the disproportionate effects cybercrime can have on women and girls. The law was passed in secrecy and without consultation of Palestinian civil society actors. As was feared by various human rights groups, it was immediately enforced to target activists and journalists posting on social media platforms. 

Furthermore, far from tackling gendered violence as its funders claim, Palestinian police reinforce it, not only by assaulting women protestors, but also by being unwilling to intervene in cases of domestic violence. Indeed, rarely are cases of domestic abuse and marital rape taken seriously, and often the process of reporting such cases is made purposefully difficult. Palestinian courts also fail to provide protection and justice for women and girls who have suffered gendered violence. A 2014 study by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that judges often reduce sentences when they find out that a murder was committed in the name of family honor. This is of course not unique to Palestine; police and justice institutions across the world fail women in the face of gendered violence. Similarly, global “security” practices are often done in the name of women’s rights, from imperialist interventionism to domestic authoritarianism. 

Today, the budget for the PA security sector, including the civil police, is larger than that of the health, agriculture, and education sectors combined. Not only are these priorities skewed, it is particularly worrying considering the PA security forces have been consistently and systematically suppressing political dissent and opposition. For their part, the Palestinian police replicate global patterns of incarceration, often targeting vulnerable individuals for detention, including many who are unable to afford bail. Meanwhile, the PA judiciary is facing an unprecedented monopoly on decision making, as PA President Mahmoud Abbas continues to rule by presidential decree and to appoint judges of his choosing.

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Far from tackling gendered violence…Palestinian police reinforce it, not only by assaulting women protestors, but also by being unwilling to intervene in cases of domestic violence
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After the Second Intifada, guns and gang violence spread within Palestinian communities in the 1948 territories. Oral dialogue and community conflict resolution strategies were thus substituted, in many cases, with brute force. This has resulted in increased engagement among some Palestinian citizens of Israel with Israeli government institutions in the hope of confronting the violence. One such form of engagement was an Israeli inter-ministerial task force created in 2019 which put forward a proposal to curb crime in Palestinian communities. It included increasing surveillance and recruiting more Palestinian men into the Israeli police force. The proposal failed to identify root socioeconomic causes of violence in Palestinian communities, instead “treating the problem [of violence] as intrinsic to Arab society,” as researcher Shahrazad Odeh writes.  

The proposal was supported by Member of Knesset Mansour Abbas, leader of the United Arab List, and the recommendations in the proposal are in line with global institutional efforts to tackle violence in “minority” communities. Aside from this inter-ministerial task force, the Israeli regime has long been using the violence within Palestinian communities to increase surveillance. Over the past decade, 14 police stations and 13 police posts were established in Palestinian communities within the 1948 territories. Yet, contrary to the state narrative, this has not curbed violence; a report by Baladna demonstrated that, in fact, the number of homicides multiplied by 1.5 between 2011 and 2019. 

Even though engagement with the Israeli police has increased, there still remains limited trust in state institutions. Odeh explains that in the case of violent incidents, the police “rarely take testimonies. They might arrest someone and release them the next day, in which time they might have interrogated them for information about the community.” In order to avoid opening an official case, the police sometimes even encourage the parties involved to engage in sulha, a traditional form of community conflict resolution that often does not involve the state. Evidently, Israeli police policy vis-à-vis Palestinian communities in the 1948 territories is to both surveil and recruit collaborators rather than provide accountability or justice.

It is clear that across colonized Palestine, both the Israeli and Palestinian policing and state justice institutions are damaging Palestinian communities, despite their claims to the contrary. By increasing surveillance and reinforcing existing harmful structures, they have confirmed that these institutional and colonial spaces cannot offer accountability and justice. Furthermore, while it is important to recognize the struggle of Palestinian “political prisoners,” it is also important to recognize that the designation of criminal activity, determined by states and regimes, often sidesteps the most powerful and targets vulnerable communities. It is thus crucial to problematize the notion of “crime” and to understand that the police and state justice institutions are, more often than not, perpetrators of the very violence they claim to tackle.

Reimagining Accountability and Justice in Palestine

Communities have been solving grievances and addressing violence well before the emergence of nation-states. Today, communities around the world are reigniting practices of community accountability and transformative justice that build upon an intersectional understanding of power structures, such as those based on patriarchy, class, and race present within society.

Community accountability is a strategy that seeks to address grievances and violence within communities without the involvement of policing institutions. It is a process in which a collective—whether a family, group of friends, or activists—works together to address the harm and violence that have been committed. It is recommended that the process include those who are trained in facilitation and harm reduction methods, as interventions led by untrained members can inadvertently exacerbate the harm. 

According to INCITE!, a network of radical feminists of color, community accountability usually involves the affirmation of values that resist violence and oppression, the development of sustainable strategies to address the violence, the protection of those suffering violence or have grievances, and the collective commitment to the ongoing development of the community to “transform the political conditions that reinforce oppression and violence.” Community accountability thus often involves transformative justice, which seeks to understand why the violence, harm, or grievance took place, and how to prevent it from happening again in the future. Importantly, transformative justice requires that we disconnect the idea of punishment from justice. 

Yet this concept, and that of a prison-free world, is still difficult for many to imagine. As Angela Davis writes in her seminal book Are Prisons Obsolete?:

Prison abolitionists are dismissed as utopians and idealists whose ideas are at best unrealistic and impracticable, and, at worst, mystifying and foolish. This is a measure of how difficult it is to envision a social order that does not rely on the threat of sequestering people in dreadful places designed to separate them from their communities and families. The prison is considered so “natural” that it is extremely hard to imagine life without it.

Indeed, states’ immediate reaction for when harm or violence is committed is to respond with a form of punitive justice, such as incarceration or, in extreme circumstances, the death penalty. For states, punitive justice is the prevailing form of justice because it is less costly than other forms, and can even be a lucrative business. Yet punitive justice does little to address the root cause of violence. In fact, more often than not, it perpetuates the cycle of violence because not only are prisons spaces of violence themselves, they also disproportionately target marginalized communities. Moreover, incarceration does little to rehabilitate incarcerated people, and many of those coming out of prison reoffend. Transformative justice seeks to reach a point in which justice for the victim is achieved without continuing the cycle of violence through punishment of the perpetrator. 

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Israeli police policy vis-à-vis Palestinian communities in the 1948 territories is to both surveil and recruit collaborators rather than provide accountability or justice
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Community accountability practices have existed in Palestine for generations. In Palestine, sulha has long been used as a practice of accountability and reconciliation between conflicting parties. Based on tribal customs and traditions, it typically does not involve mediation from the courts. To this day, it is used to address disputes involving theft, land, and violence. Sulha proceedings vary among Palestinian communities, but often involve leading elderly male members of the community, and a monetary sum is usually part of the final arrangement. In many cases, sulha is a preferred mechanism because communities are able to preserve conservative and patriarchal socio-religious structures without interference from state institutions. 

However, the sulha mechanism is, more often than not, problematic and unrepresentative; it is wrought with deep patriarchal and class dynamics. For example, women are often excluded from the processes and notable families are often able to negotiate a more favorable outcome. As a result, there have been recent efforts among Palestinian communities to come together to tackle violence and harm outside of the sulha process. One such case was in the Palestinian town of Kufr Qassem, where a youth group known as Haras al-Balad (protectors of the town) was established in order to mobilize against local mobs who were extracting protection money from people. During the Unity Intifada of May 2021, Haras al-Balad blocked the Israeli police from entering the town and arresting activists. 

Similarly, the Unified Umm al-Fahm Movement was established by women activists in Umm al-Fahm, but now consists of various political factions and people from different backgrounds. The group created a front against gun and gang violence while simultaneously addressing the violence perpetrated by the Israeli police. As Odeh describes, this group offered a mobilizing space during the Unity Intifada. 

Another example is a woman-led initiative to hold accountable the director of a prominent Palestinian NGO who was accused of sexual harassment. After hostile encounters with the person in question who denied the charges, and not wanting to engage with the Israeli police, testimonies of abuse were published through a feminist NGO in order to make the abuses known. Unfortunately, in this case, the director remained in his position and he was not held accountable; the initiative lacked wider support from the community. 

While not necessarily successful or fully challenging of the problematic power structures within society, the aforementioned examples of community accountability demonstrate a contemporary precedent of Palestinian attempts to think beyond policing and state justice institutions.

A Model for Community Accountability 

There are many models for community accountability processes that address harm and violence while also providing justice for survivors. Most have shared tactics and values that focus on three stages: firstly, support for the person or people who have been aggrieved or harmed; secondly, accountability for the person or peoples committing the grievances or harm; and thirdly, collective community accountability in order for there to be long-lasting societal change. 

In The Revolution Starts at Home, ten accountability principles are identified as an important way to begin the process, among them is the prioritization of the needs of the survivor or victim, as well as recognizing the humanity of the perpetrators of the grievance and violence. In the end, what accountability looks like will differ from case to case, depending on the violence or grievance, and on the needs of the survivor and victim. 

However, there are some general steps regarding the perpetrators of violence that can be applied to many situations: 

• Stop the immediate violence
• Recognize the violence
• Recognize the consequences of the violence without excuses
• Make repairs for the harm, including, public apology, counselling, leaving an organization or place of work, and so on 
• Change harmful attitudes and behaviors 
• Reintegration into the community as a healthy member

A toolkit by Creative Interventions, an educational project aimed particularly at ending sexual violence, suggests that the “staircase of accountability” can be incorporated into a four-phased process:

• Getting Started: identifying the violence and grievance in the first place; identifying individuals who can be part of the accountability process; and identifying the risks and considering subsequent safety measures to put in place. 
• Planning and Preparing: agreeing on the roles of the individuals who will be in the process, setting up goals for accountability, and creating a schedule.  
• Taking Action: identifying concrete moves to enact the accountability plan which could include violence intervention, reaching out to the perpetrator, and a holding community meeting.
• Follow Up: implementing a coordinated effort to make sure the process is staying on track and that agreed upon steps are being followed. 

The key to finding the right community accountability model is to draw upon the experiences of others and to tailor it to the context and needs of a given community. Thinking beyond prison and state justice institutions is certainly not an easy practice, but neither is imagining a decolonized future. Indeed, we can learn a great deal from abolitionism and global communities invoking these kinds of practices because, as Angela Davis writes, “they teach us that our visions of the future can radically depart from what exists in the present.” In other words, these practices offer possibilities that are radically different from existing lived realities.  

Policy Recommendations

The following are recommendations for Palestinian civil society and the international donor community for practicing community accountability and transformative justice that move away from incarceration: 

Civil Society:

• Palestinian civil society organizations (CSOs), advocacy groups, and grassroots collectives should prioritize developing their community accountability skills. This includes knowledge-sharing with specialized organizations, online trainings, and popular education sessions, among others. 
• Palestinian educational institutions, CSOs, and businesses should develop and adopt emergency protocols that avoid police interventions.
• Palestinian CSOs and civil society more broadly should advocate for and support policies that shrink the police and carceral systems across colonized Palestine, including calling for defunding police and security forces. 

Donor Community: 

• EUPOL COPPS should end its collaboration with Palestinian security forces and prioritize funding alternative and transformative justice initiatives.
• The international donor community should make resources available for Palestinian civil society and grassroots groups to pursue community accountability practices, including mental health services, education, and community support groups. 

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You might have already made your mind up on vaccinations, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still crucially important conversations we can all participate in, writes Fenelle McLaurin.

We have witnessed a watershed moment in Victoria. Vaccine mandates, protests, and the government’s shut down of the construction industry reveal an urgent need to have thoughtful, honest and charitable conversations about tensions surrounding vaccination and freedom in Australian society.

Shutting down conversation, unhelpful labelling, and refusing to listen to one another will only serve to further embed division in our society.

I hold we urgently need to move away from coercion towards conversation and that ancient art of persuasion. Canvassing the dominant views in the mandate debate seems as good a place as any to start.

There are, broadly speaking, those in favour of vaccine mandates (whom we can presume have been vaccinated themselves); those who have been vaccinated but who object to mandatory vaccination; and those who are unwilling or reluctant to receive an available COVID vaccine (who also presumably oppose mandated vaccination). 

The broad argument in support of mandated vaccinations holds that liberty for all could not exist alongside an absolute freedom of the individual, and that the risk to the community outweighs individual freedom in this regard. I expect that most Australians would agree to this general principle to at least some degree.

For example, it is clearly the case that we accept a range of restraints on our individual freedoms as members of society. I am not free (that is, if I am caught, I will be restrained by the State) to drive 100kms per hour in a 50km zone. This is because, quite aside from any damage I may do to myself, I will be putting other members of the community at an unacceptable level of risk.

This is just one example but of course there are a whole host of areas where we see broad community acceptance of restraints on our behaviour as individuals because of impacts on the community.

Those in favour of mandated vaccination draw on this line of thought to support why they think all citizens should a) get the vaccine in the first instance and, failing that b) be forced to receive it against their will by coercive measures. For such people, it does not materially matter whether citizens receive a vaccine out of free choice or out of coercion. The important thing is the end result: greater COVID protection across society.

For others though, respecting and upholding principles like medical autonomy is a cornerstone of Australian society. Such people often accept restraints on their behaviour for the good of the community, but they hold it is quite another thing to be forced to have a foreign substance injected into their bodies. They may think either that there is no situation in which vaccines should be mandated, or else that the current situation does not meet the threshold for such justification.

Many people who have chosen to receive a COVID vaccine fall in this camp and oppose the mandated vaccination of their fellow citizens. They value the role their own views and assent played in their vaccination and object strongly to anyone being made to receive it against their will.

Finally, there are those who are hesitant or unwilling to receive one of the available COVID vaccines. Concerns from these groups typically arise from the speed of clinical trials, the limitations on safety and efficacy data available, the mixed messaging of the government, the politics surrounding vaccine research, and most recently, the coercive measures to force citizens to receive a substance into their bodies which they do not presently want.

In a group already affected by issues of trust between governments, pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession, mandating vaccines confirms their initial reluctance.

On top of this, vaccine mandates are also creating an added question where none needed to exist: namely, should I refuse a COVID vaccine out of a defence of freedom?

With few other options available to people to express their views via the usual democratic processes (protests are prohibited, there is little variety of opinion in the mainstream media, and parliaments have been suspended), vaccine refusal in the face of mandates has become, for some, the most realistic way to object to the modus operandi of the political regime. Such people perceive mandated vaccines as a potentially fatal blow to the liberal democratic state they cherish and wish their children and grandchildren to inherit.

The various perspectives I have outlined are by no means complete or decisive, but they are all worth discussing precisely because people are thinking about them. However, if we as a society cannot manage to even talk about these differences without hyperventilating or name calling, then we will be adding to our problems in a very serious way.  

I submit the cost of mandated vaccinations is embedded community division, a breakdown of government-citizen trust, acquiescence to the law without acceptance, the fostering of a breeding ground for civil disobedience, the further stretching of an already stretched social fabric, and serious blows to our democratic state. This hefty bill should give us cause to ask what other strategies are available to our government and society?

As Plato observed in The Republic, you cannot persuade those who won’t listen, and from my experience, very few people can genuinely listen if they are being coerced. Instead, I hold conversation and persuasion will ensure the best outcomes overall and are more fitting of the dignity of our citizens.

Conversations take time, trust, and mutual respect; an approach much more in line with our Australian values than coercion. There are so many worthwhile, engaging discussions of profound consequence we could be having right now, if only we can manage to let our guards down a little and listen to one another.

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Punctuated by the outbreak of the Unity Intifada in May 2021, the trajectory of Palestinian resistance is experiencing a watershed phase marked by new actors and themes. With the effective neutralization of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the deepening geopolitical fragmentation of Palestinians across colonized Palestine and the world, and the global shift to cyberspace, new opportunities — and threats — to Palestinian resistance have emerged.

While Palestinians and their allies across the world resist the ongoing injustices committed by the Israeli regime, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has grown more authoritarian, corrupt, and hostile than ever before. Non-violent resistance in Palestine — led by a new generation of Palestinian youth — has been met by tremendous suppression by Israeli occupation and Palestinian security forces alike. Meanwhile, Israel continues to circumscribe anti-Zionist activism across the world. 

In this selection of pieces, Al-Shabaka policy analysts outline the trajectory of contemporary Palestinian resistance with an eye to the emerging trends, actors, and tactics that will be crucial to harness in the years to come. In particular, they focus on the challenges that will be faced from various fronts, including efforts to censure the BDS movement and its supporters in the West, online censorship of grassroots actors by media corporations, and crackdowns by Israeli and Palestinian security forces on the ground.

Landscape of Contemporary Resistance

Debating Forms of Resistance

Sam Bahour, Rana Barakat, Mary Nazzal-Batayneh, Oroub el-Abed, Nadia Hijab, Victor Kashkoush, Anis Kassim, Osamah Khalil, Mouin Rabbani

This 2011 roundtable examines the effectiveness of different forms of resistance in achieving Palestinian self-determination. In a series of meetings, Al-Shabaka policy analysts discuss new forms of civil struggle, the role of boycotts, the use of legal strategies, the problems of armed resistance, the failure of negotiations as a strategy, and the implications of plans to declare a Palestinian state. Read more…

What’s Stopping the 3rd Intifada?

Jamil Hilal

In this 2014 commentary, Jamil Hilal argues that the outbreak of a third intifada is contingent on the interaction of the dehumanizing conditions of life under occupation, changes within Palestinian society in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Palestinian political movement more broadly. How are these factors observable in the escalation leading up to the events of May 2021? Read more…

US Palestine Solidarity: Reviving Original Patterns of Political Engagement

Loubna Qutami

Loubna Qutami’s 2018 policy brief reviews the evolution of the Palestine solidarity movement in the US, examining how the investments, interests, and strategies of Palestinians themselves are — or are not — being cultivated. Qutami assesses how the engagement of Palestinians in the US with other struggles can be more meaningfully and durably strengthened in pursuit of freedom, self-determination, and justice. Read more…

Back to the Future: The Great March of Return

Haidar Eid

Haidar Eid’s 2018 commentary examines how the Great March of Return undercut the dominance of Palestinian political leadership, especially after the PA sanctions on Gaza in 2017. Despite the austerity of life in an increasingly uninhabitable Gaza, a new grassroots movement emerged, defined by self-reliance, and inspired by the First Intifada and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Read more…

Defying Fragmentation & the Significance of Unity: A New Palestinian Uprising

Yara Hawari

In her commentary, Al-Shabaka’s senior analyst, Yara Hawari, contextualizes the 2021 Unity Intifada within the trajectory of Palestinian resistance, arguing that the uprising is an articulation of a shared Palestinian struggle that defies their forced fragmentation. She shows how Palestinians are increasingly employing creative forms of resistance, including the disruption of Israel’s economy and the engagement of international audiences through social media platforms. Read more…

Israeli Attacks on Anti-Zionist Activists

Palestinian Citizens in Israel: A Fast-Shrinking Civic Space

Nadim Nashif and Raya Naamneh

Israel portrays itself as a Jewish and democratic state, yet in practice it functions as a Jewish ethnocracy. As the Israeli state came under the complete control of the far-right wing, the last remaining civil freedoms for its Palestinian citizens have been even further curtailed. This 2016 commentary by Nadim Nashif and Raya Naamneh traces the wave of discriminatory legislation and the use of the emergency powers that have targeted established Palestinian NGOs and movements, limiting the ways Palestinians can legally resist apartheid. Read more…

BDS: Discussing Difficult Issues in a Fast-Growing Movement

Omar Barghouti and Nadia Hijab

In June 2016, Al-Shabaka co-founder, Nadia Hijab, sat with Omar Barghouti, founder of the BDS movement, to discuss the movement’s objectives and prospects within the landscape of Palestinian advocacy, and in the wake of Israel’s attacks on the movement and its activists. Barghouti emphasizes that BDS alone cannot deliver Palestinian rights; it must be tied to other strategies, including local popular resistance, and legal strategies to hold Israel and its leaders accountable for their crimes. Read more…

Digital Censorship in the Palestinian Context

Nadim Nashif, Marwa Fatafta, and Nur Arafeh

Al-Shabaka’s former policy lab facilitator, Nur Arafeh, was joined in November 2019 by Nadim Nashif and Marwa Fatafta — authors of Surveillance of Palestinians & the Fight for Digital Rights — for a discussion about how the Israeli state uses social media to monitor individual Palestinians, to gather information on the Palestinian public, and to censor the publicization of Israeli human rights violations. Read more…

The EU’s Additional Condition on Aid to Palestine

Tariq Dana

In this 2020 commentary, Tariq Dana argues that the additional condition introduced to EU funding contracts — which stipulate that civil society organizations are not permitted to deal with “terrorist” individuals or groups — is the result of constant Israeli pressure on the EU to refrain from funding Palestinian organizations engaged in reporting on Israeli settler-colonial practices and human rights violations. Read more…

Israel’s Losing Battle: Palestine Advocacy in the University

Hatem Bazian

Hatem Bazian’s 2020 commentary historicizes the emergence of Palestinian advocacy on US college campuses from the broader Palestine solidarity movement, as well as the responses of Israel and its supporters to this shift. He argues that, despite attacks against Palestine advocacy groups, college campuses continue to provide an environment that fosters critical research and thinking on Palestine, which, in turn, furthers the struggle for Palestinian rights and self-determination. Read more…

Persecution & Suppression on the Ground

Threats to Human Rights Defenders: How Far Will Israel Go?

Noura Erakat, Ingrid Jaradat Gassner, Diana Buttu, Nur Arafeh

In this 2016 roundtable, Noura Erakat provides an overview of the extrajudicial assassination of hundreds of Palestinians over the years, particularly in the West Bank, on account of a rise in armed Palestinian resistance. Diana Buttu gives further evidence of these increasingly frequent Israeli attacks, and Ingrid Jaradat describes specific attacks on BDS activists and human rights defenders, with the complicity of Western governments. Read more…

The Palestinian Authority Security Forces: Whose Security?

Alaa Tartir

Alaa Tartir discusses how the PA security establishment has failed to protect Palestinians from the main source of their insecurity: the Israeli military occupation. In this 2017 policy brief, Tartir argues that the PA has failed to empower Palestinians to resist the occupation. Instead, by characterizing it as “insurgency” or “instability,” the PA has contributed to criminalizing the Palestinian struggle for freedom, echoing the discourse of the so-called War on Terror. Read more…

The Systematic Torture of Palestinians in Israeli Detention

Yara Hawari

As Israeli judicial bodies authorize the Israeli Secret Service to use “exceptional methods” to extract information from Palestinians, Al-Shabaka’s senior analyst, Yara Hawari, traces the history of the use of torture in Israeli detention. In this 2019 policy brief, she demonstrates how the practice of torture, embedded in the Israeli prison system, is systematic and legitimized through Israeli law — despite the condemnation of international human rights organizations. Read more…

Collective Punishment: Israel’s Strategy to Subdue Palestinian Resistance

Issam Younis, Nada Awad, and Nur Arafeh

In this August 2020 policy lab, Al-Shabaka’s former policy lab facilitator, Nur Arafeh, is joined by analysts Issam Younis and Nada Awad to discuss the toll of Israeli collective punishment tactics on Palestinian society. They examine how tactics such as house demolitions, the siege of Gaza, and the ransom of Palestinian bodies, are used to subjugate and suppress Palestinian resistance. They show how they fit into Israel’s broader apartheid regime. Read more…

Destroying Palestinian Jerusalem, One Institution at a Time

Yara Hawari

The Israeli state has been attacking Palestinian cultural presence in East Jerusalem since it occupied it in 1967, culminating in the sacking of three cultural institutions and the arrest of their directors in July 2020. Written in the wake of the event, this policy brief by Al-Shabaka’s senior analyst, Yara Hawari, situates these assaults on Jerusalem’s Palestinian institutions within the broader context of Israeli suppression of Palestinian civil society, and the project of erasing Palestinian cultural presence in the city. Read more…

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